Jock Tamson's Bairns

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I enjoyed this article by Daniel Finkelstein in The Times which reminded me of a really ghastly phone-in programme on BBC Radio Scotland the other day.

Now the BBC phone-in was about politics, broadly speaking, and this woman (clearly a well known caller to the presenter) came on the line to share her views with fellow Scots which were proudly and firmly 'socialist', but with a strange edge.

When asked what she would do if one of her grandchildren announced they would be voting Conservative, this Glaswegian granny responded by saying that the family member involved would be swiftly disowned.

Not that many years ago this is the same fate that would have been meted out to a Catholic family member who married a Protestant or vice versa and if you ask me it's a completely shameful mindset for any Scot to possess in this day and age.

But politics and religion can both drive people mad and often do, especially when tribal loyalties come onto play and punishments are handed out people who stray from the one true path.

All I would say is that I'd much rather enjoy an afternoon in Daniel Finkelstein's company than five minutes in the same room as a Glasgow granny who would punish her own flesh and blood for going against the politics of the clan.  

What an insult to the proud notion that when push comes to shove we're all Jock Tamson's bairns. 

Labour hasn’t got a monopoly on compassion

By Daniel Finkelstein - The Times


Martin Freeman is the latest celebrity to claim wrongly that the left has cornered the market in human decency

Dear Martin Freeman

Do you have a moment, by any chance? I’d quite like to have a word about the party broadcast you did for Labour last week. I won’t keep you long, I promise.

Let me start with this. It was really good. It is ironic that everyone complains that politicians are just playing a role but when an actor appears in a broadcast, everyone is delighted with its authenticity. But I think that is down to a particular quality of yours. It’s why I’ve always been a fan. One can imagine knowing Tim from The Office and wanting him as a friend.

I also want to say, thank you for doing it. I thought it was really brave of you. You are successful and widely liked and it is impressive to be willing to put that at risk — to make yourself controversial and open to scrutiny — to advance a cause you believe in. So many people just moan about politicians. I admire you for being willing to do more than that.

It won’t surprise you to know, however, that I do rather take issue with what you had to say.

I am not proposing to argue with you about voting Labour. It’s not what I am intending to do myself but there are some robust arguments for voting Labour. What I want to take issue with is something different. I’d like to persuade you to think again about the argument you made. You begin your broadcast with the assertion that this complicated election is “in the end simple … It’s a choice between two completely different sets of values”. You continue with this: “Now, I don’t know about you, but my values are about community, compassion, decency. That’s how I was brought up.” So you contend that, whatever the details of the argument, in the end they’re only part of the story.

Instead, “there is a choice of two paths. The bottom line is what values are we choosing … Labour. They start from the right place. Community. Compassion. Fairness. I think all the best things about this country”.

Now, I don’t doubt that Labour does start from this right place. But the thing is — and I’m not quite sure how to put this correctly, so I’ll just say it — the thing is, so do I. Community, compassion, fairness, decency, I like those things too. I try to live by them, too.

I wonder if at any point while making the broadcast it occurred to you to wonder if it could really be true that Tories sit down and think: “Mmm, compassion, no I don’t think we’ll start there. Let’s wait until someone comes up with something unfair and then we can get motoring!” Before letting out a sinister laugh and heading off to have tea with Voldemort.

I am pretty sure you didn’t mean this — because you appear like a self-effacing, nice, considerate person — but actually what you said was both arrogant and offensive. And I suspect these are the last things you’d wish to be.

It was arrogant because it suggested that you have succeeded in living by the values you have been brought up with. That you are fundamentally a good person. I guess deep down we all think that, whatever our failings, but you actually said it out loud. On television. As a way of distinguishing yourself from me.

It was offensive because it suggests — there is really no other way of interpreting your comments — that your superior voting choice is dictated by the fact that your parents brought you up to be decent. Whereas mine?

You are either suggesting I am not a good son, or that my parents were not good parents. Either that they tried to bring me up to be kind, like you, but failed. Or that, unlike your parents, mine didn’t much bother with moral instruction, sending me out into the world to laugh at disabled people and steal from orphans.

As I don’t think you meant this, I think what you made was a simple intellectual error. You assumed that decency and compassion lead only to one political view and that if it isn’t yours, someone reaching a different conclusion isn’t compassionate or decent.

Let me give you a few examples that show that this isn’t quite right. Take welfare. I want, desperately, to support poor people in their moment of need, but how much is the right amount? What are the right conditions?

Obviously compassion inclines one to generosity. Yet pay too much and it starts to make it more financially advantageous to be on benefits than to work. Some people won’t exploit this but others will. And how fair — that word you use — is this to those who do work, have low earnings and have to pay for it?

I apologise if this is an obvious point but I fear it really did seem as though, watching your broadcast, I had to make it.

What about war? We are kind, decent people the two of us, so how does that leave deciding what to do about Syria? It’s not much of a guide, is it?

Or taxes? We all agree we should take money from those who can afford it, to help pay for communal services people wouldn’t be able to buy on their own. Yet if we tax too much or in the wrong way, we might slow the growth of the economy, damaging the income of the least well off.

Has it been compassionate to end up spending so much that we need to borrow a fortune? Has it been fair? Or decent? You talked about young people and how important they are, but won’t they have to pick up the bill for all the borrowing?

We all make different judgments about what works and what we think is sensible. I don’t doubt there are coalition programmes you feel have been poorly thought-through or whose impact has harmed people they shouldn’t have harmed. Where the balance between keeping welfare bills low and protecting recipients has been poorly struck.

I don’t object to you arguing these points with vigour. But I do object to the idea that they arise because you are a better person than me.

The idea that the left is kind and the right unkind is a pervasive one but one that history doesn’t support. Some of the most grotesque mass murdering dictatorships in the world have come from the left. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot. Leftism isn’t a certificate of goodness.

Peace, love, looking after sick children, trees, the climate, poor people, family, hospitals, pensioners, I do like them all as much as you do, you know.


Daniel

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